China's Rose
by Mrs. A. Hamilton
Summary: COMPLETE. Has God not made foolishness the wisdom of the world? Rated for content. Concerns itself with the purpose of suffering in God's design. Please read and review.
1. The Folly of Men

**Author's Note:** I have a fascination for the Ming Dynasty, so I decided to dip into it, but unfortunately, not elaborate on it. Nevertheless, due a book, as well as some other questions and stories posted on this site, I was inspired to write a sort of response--not like _Parody of Letters_, naturally; rather,a fiction containing a much more serious note. The biblical passages are, of course, not mine, as well as some Shakespeare references which I found suitable.

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The muscled, coarse hands around the girl's slender limbs tightened as she was forcibly propelled up the steps of the crimson-stained scaffold. Arriving at the last step, Adèle's bare foot caught its splintered edge, and the girl stumbled forward onto the platform, scraping her elbows, her bare knees and shins. How fragile the human body is, this mere mold of clay! What purpose this manifestation of the deity's likeness would serve she would not comprehend until the End, but she marveled silently at its easy ruin. Still, Adam had been crafted from dust, she recalled, and to dust all his offspring would return. And yet Christ had deigned himself to enter such a womb..!

The sudden sputtering of high-pitched Chinese severed Adèle's thoughts. The verdict had been pronounced, the justice of the Ming proclaimed, and her fate thus sealed. As the small Asian man—a magistrate of some sort, she mused—continued to justify the sentence of the French maiden, the guards snatched her from the wooden platform and hoisted her upon her feet, her nigh-naked, blood-stained, bruised body revealed for all to see and scorn. She did not wince at their hateful cries, nor quail in mortification, but determinedly stared past the short wooden post and directly into the Devil's eyes.

Crouched upon a rooftop, Kael clasped his hilt as he watched the Prince of Darkness step towards his angelic counterpart. A gauntleted hand instantly stayed his arm, and the General turned to face Rafael's serene and confident gaze.

'It is for His Name,' the sea-gray-eyed angel whispered.

O dreadful humanity! How the angels weep at your disgrace! How all creation groans with the pains of childbirth, eagerly awaiting, for centuries and centuries, the redemption of the sons of God! How they must suffer, so that His Name might be exalted!

Thus, the glorious Ming Empire condemned this innocent creature for the Name she glorified. The Prince of Darkness could not have been more satisfied. His gleaming lavender eyes flickered with demonic glee at the sight of his prey.

'In the guise of a slave girl?' the Dark Lord queried as his long, black talon gently brushed away the glistening auburn ringlets from Adèle's gray eyes. Terrible and imposing, Lucifer towered menacingly over her, but the angel did not rivet her gaze from his perfect, beautiful countenance, though his own minions would have quivered and faltered under it. 'What end should your death serve?'

'To ennoble His Name to the world,' Adèle returned.

The demon lord gave her an incredulous glance before a malignant chuckle escaped his lips.

'What possible difference could the life of a slave girl make?' Lucifer cried in disbelief. 'You are a foreigner here in this God-forsaken country!' He flapped his leathery wings aside like a grand regal robe and shook his head as he encircled her beaten frame. 'How could you possibly conceive that your writing could expose the evil and corruption of this regime? The intelligentsia continuously perceived your poetry as arrogant and pretentious—and yet you persisted and gained no influence, not even among the rebels! My forces have beaten you and have successfully prevented your charge from receiving recognition that she is indeed the lost and rightful heiress to the Ming throne!' He paused for a moment upon arriving in front of her once more, staring intently at her fearless gray eyes. Then, the fallen angel tenderly took her chin into his hideous talons. 'Even if the Ming heiress does convert—do you truly believe that a solitary Christian empress could transform an unchristian empire?' the dark prince hissed. 'Don't be foolish, my dear!'

Adèle's gaze remained resolute. 'Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?' she said, her eyes brightening. 'For, since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.'

With narrowed eyes, Lucifer released her chin and delivered a stunning blow to her cheek. A muffled shout rang out from the rooftops, and the mighty demon lord swiveled around in alarm, his flickering eyes warily searching the upturned eaves. Kael had barely called out her name when Rafael quickly stifled his cry, and flattened the General to the tiled shingles. Hardly breathing, both archangels anxiously watched the monstrous Dragon's distressed countenance slowly contort into a fiendish grin. His massive fist suddenly seized Adèle's throat, and he called out, 'Reveal yourself, General of the Heavenly Host! Her sufferings can be made greater at your leisure!' Yet, neither sound nor sight returned his demand—only the high-pitched voice of the magistrate resounded across the vicinity in reply.

Lucifer drew closer to his angelic victim, her throat clutched in his grip. 'You have been abandoned, I'm afraid,' he breathed darkly. 'There is no hope for you to cling to—everything that you have hoped to gain has been lost; your strenuous efforts have been utterly wasted.' The fallen angel slowly loosened his hold, allowing his talons to slide soothingly behind her ears. 'Despair.'

Taking his gnarled hand from her, the Prince of Darkness turned to his demon warlords. 'Finish it,' he growled.

The magistrate, after vindicating the sentence, signaled the guards and the executioner. The rhythmic pounding of the drums hammered in the silence, shaking the nerves of all earthly beings present. With a powerful beat of his wings, Lucifer glided behind the wooden post and waited, like a priest for the Grail at an altar, for the prisoner to be brought forth. His eyes clouded with bloodlust as the guards wrenched Adèle to the death site, sitting her down, and binding her naked arms to the stump. As the executioner unsheathed his sabers, a metallic ring pierced the cadence of the drums, emitting its own sinister hum. Kael tensed at the sight of the weapons, but Rafael clung fast to his celestial companion.

'For His Name, General,' the archangel reminded him, 'for His Name!'

For His Name Adèle would live, for His Name she would suffer, and for His Name, she would die—if historians only knew how many before the girl and after had and would follow His example, they could never begin to write; the quill in their ink-stained hands would shake furiously from weeping, their tears would blot the parchment! O, but how mankind should rejoice, that those not of this world have not given up on the world; that the Creator may use them to display His glory—and how much glory these martyrs will receive!—so that their folly might bring men to believe. The nature of man calls him to depend on himself for his own security, that the aim to preserve his own life will allow him to escape both earthly and eternal torment. But consider the uncertainty of human life: no man knows what tomorrow will bring, and therefore, despite all his strength and wisdom in the eyes of the world, he is a solitary figure of nothing amid the Maker's great cosmos. For what is human life? Evanescent and fragile, it is but a mist which appears for a little time, and then suddenly vanishes—that poor player which struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.

O, but what a tale Adèle was to make of this story! Even when she bore the brunt of the cane in the courtroom, when the blood began to spill down her back, when her ribs cracked, and the second anguished cries escaped her broken lips, she rejoiced!

Dear man, rejoiced in what? our nature protests. Bent on the destruction of the Kingdom of Heaven, Satan expected the same cry to burst from the girl bound to the blood-stained post. The Tempter slowly sank to her side, his massive wings falling around her thin shoulders like a comforting blanket, dark but soothing.

'Does a loving God leave you to suffer alone, my dear?' Lucifer whispered softly into Adèle's ear.

Adèle did not respond, staring at the setting sun before her which would eventually drown into the depths of night. The dance of death began as the executioner magnificently displayed his skill with his weapons before the crowd, turning and spinning on the scaffold, his blades but brilliant twirling scythes in the light of the dying sun.

'Tell me,' the Prince of Darkness said ominously, 'will your death end all other deaths? Christ died before you, yet His death _and_ resurrection have not relieved the world of pain and suffering. So many will die after you in His Name, and nothing will change! Evils of all kinds will continue to persist—homosexuality, innocent slaughter, cheating, adultery—and so much more!' He laughed slightly, shaking his head, before continuing, 'Believe me, my dear, when I tell you that you are wasting your life! You have lost everything and have gained _nothing_'

Glistening tears suddenly veiled Adèle's large gray eyes and gently caressed her dirty cheeks. Perceiving her sorrow, a hideous grin spread across the demon lord's flawless countenance.

'With that consolation,' the Devil whispered, pulling her face close to his perfect lips, 'die.'


	2. A New Creation

Satisfied with himself, Lucifer began to draw away from the girl, until she suddenly looked up to him, and spoke. 'O Lucius, I weep not for myself but for you!' she said, her voice strong and firm, though tears streaked her fair countenance. 'Pitiful Devil, how ignorant you are! How could you possibly presume to know God's will, who is omniscient and omnipotent and beyond your limited wisdom and power! My charge's future is neither within your hands nor her own, but within God's—even I am unaware of her fate! But I have planted the seed; my duty is done!'

As she spoke those words, Satan suddenly drew back in terror of the celestial light which began to surround Adèle, like a candle divinely lit whose flame henceforth would never cease to burn but grow in brilliance.

'You, prince of the world, still have power, because the curse has not been completely lifted, for not all of His enemies have been subdued. Men will suffer and men will perish. But men take heart—for in His death and resurrection the sins of men have been forgiven—Christ has conquered the world!

'When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

'Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

'The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gave us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ—whose power does not overwhelm at once but grows daily so that His glory might be revealed to His creation!'

Her wounds slowly faded, and the bloodstains disappeared before the dark lord's wide eyes. 'And so I have hope in death,' Adèle continued, 'but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead!'

Even as the hour of her death loomed over her small frame, she dared to pronounce her final words: 'For to me to live is Christ,' she proclaimed, defying the Devil's cold, yet fearful stare, 'to die is gain!'

A defeated scream pierced the heavens as a glittering explosion of light shattered the oppressive gloom of Hell, scattering demons in all directions. Like a brilliant, blossoming white rose, it burst in radiance, blinding Lucifer, and finally, sent him flying against the platform, shrieking and cursing. Once the wind had ceased and the light had faded, the dark prince looked about, his lavender eyes nervously darting to and fro. But the luminous angel had disappeared; all that he saw was a setting sun shining on a curious crowd staring at some spectacle before him. In fact, their mortal eyes could not possibly perceive the unseen realm where Good and Evil constantly battle: what they beheld was a bound, beaten, pristine creature whose sparkling gray eyes revealed not defeat, but victory; whose radiant countenance evinced no trace of despair, but glowed with unwavering certainty.

The blades hummed—a final beat—a sigh—the candlelight flickered, then vanished, as blood sprinkled upon folded hands. And with the expiration of that light came utter darkness. Night descended upon Nanking once more, and, as the slaves dragged the headless body away, the crowd dispersed and returned, unaffected, to their previous occupation.

Yet one remained. Though shaken by the previous sight, the two hidden archangels grew alert as they perceived a cloaked figure slowly emerge out of the obscurity of the ally into the open space before the scaffold. Warily, Kael and Rafael fluttered to the ground, their bright eyes still searching for lurking demons. Veiled stars peeped out of the heavens, and the moonlight, shrouded in darkness, cast no glow upon their path.

The slender shadow was arrested by the sight of the wooden structure, staring fixedly at the blood-streaked post upon which Adèle had expired. A small, quivering gasp shook the silence, and suddenly the stranger sank to the dusty ground, shaking with sobs. O what delight the Heavenly King must have felt at the hour His child was chosen to receive His merciful grace; for Christ did not sacrifice himself so that the righteous might live, but that the sinful wretched might be saved!

'I am Thine,' the stranger's melodious voice rang out, 'deliver me!'

And who was this shadow whose heart stirred at the death of a foreign maidservant—the maidservant whose martyrdom unveiled this stranger's heathen eyes to perceive that there is no greater love than he who lays down his life for a friend—that at the moment the blade sliced into Adèle's flesh the French maiden magnified Someone who bore the sins of man by allowing Himself to be nailed to a tree, tortured, mocked, and shamed? As the angels approached the weeping figure and knelt down beside her, Kael carefully drew back the hood of the cloak and peered into twin pale blue eyes which glistened as a frigid stream glows at its release from a long, dark winter in receiving the spring sun's first rays.

_Ni da yen jing hun peow liung_, Adèle had remarked once, as she had gazed into the Chinese girl's woeful eyes.

And how often would sorrow overshadow those bright eyes! Indeed, we are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing! We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed!

'Behold,' the resurrected Christ announced, 'she lives.'


End file.
